AS managerial appointments go, Derek McInnes’s at Aberdeen was unconventional.

The fanfare on March 23, 2013, was muted, given that it was announced that he would not take over the reins from outgoing boss Craig Brown until two weeks later when the league split came and he’d had time to assess the Pittodrie playing staff from the stands.

Five years on, McInnes has become the Dons’ longest-serving manager since Sir Alex Ferguson but admits that he is a man with a plan, not only for the club but for himself.

A manager who chooses his words carefully and who knows how to “work” the media, the former St Johnstone boss, later sacked by Bristol City before pitching-up at Pittodrie several weeks later, McInnes quickly stamped his authority on the Dons as he pledged in those early days to improve the team and help the city of Aberdeen “fall in love” with them again.

Yet, a League Cup win in his first full season and a string of second-place finishes in the league have not brought complacency.

There is still ambition and a desire to try and cut it in a bigger arena.

"I'm happy here,” McInnes said yesterday. “And you know how important this job is to me. So, there's no burning desire to move from here.

"But I have got a plan for myself and there are certain clubs I would like to manage and certain countries you would like to manage in.

"I think you have got to have a plan for yourself in a career. Whether you eventually fulfil those ambitions or not.

"It's the same for a player as you have got to have a vision for what you want to do. There's still a lot to do here for me though as I still want to make sure we do a bit more at Aberdeen first.”

Such comments will hardly send shockwaves throughout the north-east, nor in the office of Stewart Milne, the club's chairman and the man who gave him permission to speak to two bigger outfits, Sunderland and Rangers, while keeping the Pittodrie door open for him.

It is unknown whether Rangers, whose courting he snubbed, might still be one of those “certain clubs” he would like to manage but football, being a strange and unpredictable world, constantly produces surprises.

For the time being he recognises the need for something special to list on his CV: a Scottish Cup triumph would sit nicely among his achievements.

Which is why reaching the final for the second successive season is an ambition that burns deeply within him.

He added: “I said when we came in that winning cups or getting to cup finals was very important for us and we’ve got to try and get a team on the pitch that can meet that demand.

"I felt that the team we inherited wasn’t giving us a chance to be competitive. I think what we have shown over the last few years is that we’ve now got a team on the pitch who can meet that demand. I feel we’ve still got that now.

“Last year, against Celtic, we were a pass away from potentially winning a cup final. Inches away. I felt that was a defining moment and I actually felt as though that was the end of three or four years’ work – that team.

"If we can get to a cup final and hopefully win it in our first year together then that would be good going. This is, for me, the start of working towards where last season’s cup final team were. We were that close.

"Ideally, I would have liked to have kept that team together and added bits and pieces to it. Hopefully we can get the experience into this squad and get to another cup final this season.”